Monthly Archives: July 2014

This was a much better experience than our previous visit (Titus Andronicus). We could hear the dialogue as well as seeing more of the action, and although there were a few casualties who needed to be helped out of the theatre, we weren’t distracted so much by them this time around. Mind you, they were still building the set when we arrived at our seats; two workmen were busy setting up the fake façade of a building underneath the balcony, which at least gave the audience something to watch while we waited for the play to begin.

We stayed in the Minerva for the interval after Miss Julie to see the set being changed. There was a lot to do; they had to move from the kitchen of a country estate in 19th century Sweden to an impecunious artist’s flat in 1960s London in fifteen minutes. The existing set was cleared, with some of the back wall sections being turned around to provide additional wall parts for the new set. The biggest item they brought on was a large piece of construction which had the bedroom upstairs and a screened off studio area underneath; getting this into the right position took some time. With that placed correctly, the rest of the set could be sorted out, which involved placing lots of chairs, a patchwork of rugs, the stairs up to the bedroom and many paintings plus a tree-like sculpture. The door was in the same place as before, but that was the only similarity to the previous set which I could spot. There was also a telephone on the floor on the left side of the stage, a chaise centre back and a wooden block at the very front of the stage on which stood a brightly-coloured Buddha statue.

I was the one nodding off this time. Whether it was just tiredness or a lack of energy on stage I don’t know, but this is certainly a difficult play to follow if you don’t give it your full attention. It meanders about and presents us with people whose background and expectations are very different from our own. There’s no clear unravelling of a plot, and if we don’t feel some kind of sympathy or understanding for the main characters it can be a hard struggle to find anything to enjoy. From the pre-show talk with Jamie Glover (a few days later) we learned that the preview phase can bring about many changes as the audience gives its feedback; perhaps we’ll see something different on our next viewing.

Nice to see this one again. We saw the original National production in 1987, and the revival at Chichester in 2000; both were good, but this was probably our favourite. The individual performances were all excellent, and with several Ayckbourn regulars in the cast they brought out the humour perfectly. Overall I felt this was a lighter version of the play; the story became a bit darker towards the end, but it wasn’t as dark as either of the earlier productions.

This rating was Steve’s – I chose to spend the second half in the Globe café so as not to be completely bored out of my mind. Even so, I would have given the first half a 5/10 rating as there were some good bits, but so much was happening on the far side of a pillar today that I wasn’t able to engage with or enjoy the performance at all.